Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The Reformed State Map of the US

It's neat and all that the US was the first modern country to adopt many democratic institutions - we did it way back in the 18th Century, before the French Revolution even. Bully for us! However, a side effect of our early adoption of 'democracy' is that we have a lot of weird anachronistic leftovers from the pre-1789 era. Slavery was one, but fortunately we finally managed to get rid of that. But other, less significant but still not insignificant pre-democratic inconveniences remain. This map is meant to address some of these issues. Says fitn:

The electoral college is a time-honored system that has only produced results in conflict with the popular vote three times in over 200 years. However, it's obvious that reforms are needed. The organization of the states should be altered. This Electoral Reform Map redivides the territory of the United States into 50 bodies of equal size.... [This plan] overrepresentation of small states and underrepresention of large states in presidental voting and in the US Senate. Preserves the historical structure of the electoral college and the United States unique federal system, balancing power between levels of government. States could be redistricted after each census - just like house seats are distributed now.

Fifty states, as you see here, each with just about the same population. Yes, this would help with the problem of the electoral college system for picking presidents, which is insane by any reasonable standard and without which we might have avoided a certain period of unpleasantness from 2001-2009.

But the real advantage is in the Senate. Right now, Wyoming has as many senators as California. Vermont has as many as Texas. That's just straight up retarded. It's certainly not democratic. And don't give me any of that crap about how it preserves the sovereignty of states as the Great and Omniscient Founding Fathers intended, because do you know why they ended up with this provision that every state have an equal number of senators? To protect regional interests from the will of the majority; i.e., to protect southern interests; i.e., to protect slavery from meddlesome northerners. (And like just about everything unseemly in American politics, it all somehow goes back to the legacy of slavery...) Nothing approaches this level of blatant anti-democratic institutional structure in the free world. What's more, we can't even amend the constitution to allow for proportional representation in the Senate: the Founders made sure of that by making it the one thing that couldn't be repealed by amendment. Brilliant! So we would have to hold a constitutional convention and start over from scratch if we wanted to reform the Senate in a way that would really live up to modern norms.

Or - we could follow this guy's plan: just take the scissors to the ol' state map and produce what you see above. There would still be two senators per state, but every state would have equal population, so representation would be proportional. A fantastic idea! This would be much fairer than the system we've got going on now. In particular, as it stands, rural areas are way, way overrepresented in the Senate; having two senators each for neo-states like SF Bay, Los Angeles, Boston, New York, and Dallas would remedy that.

As for the electoral college, it wouldn't solve the problem entirely. It would still be possible to lose the popular vote and win the electoral college, but at least it wouldn't be due to the fact that the smallest states get overrepresented in the electoral college (e.g., North Dakota gets 3 EVs, because of its 1 representative + 2 senators, though it only has the population to justify 1).

Of course, there would be some logistical problems in re-organizing state governments throughout the country. But bah, I say. Small potatoes: the senate is dysfunctional as it is and it is going to end up killing the country. My own personal choice would be for us all to just ignore the Senate until it went away, sort of like the House of Lords. But this plan strikes me as the next best thing.

69 comments:

Well, the Senate is useful in that the 6-year terms and staggered election cycle provides a break on the tempers of the House, as the Founding Fathers intended. But redrawing state boundaries is a silly way to fix that; for one thing, you'd have to redraw state boundaries with every census to maintain this solution. Just allocate Senators by population, and the problem is fixed. Similarly, the electoral college is still a bad idea even if you redistribute the states. Just adopt a popular vote system, and that's fixed. This idea makes for fun maps, but it's not a serious idea for political reform.

Fluid state boundaries with every census doesn't fix the problem because of intra-census migrations, e.g. now with the economy and movement away from the "rust" belt and California to the southeastern United States.

I say chuck the republic altogether and make it a real democracy - one American, one vote. Hey, as long as we're redistributing states, why not?

But like I said, the Founders forbade this solution unto all eternity.

Again, I think we ought to just let the Senate lapse into irrelevance, maybe by pointing at them and laughing until they all get embarrassed and go home. Other countries get by with unicameral legislatures in parliamentary systems just fine, and with our presidential system and strong judiciary, we'd still have a more robust balance of powers than that.

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states.

The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes--that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

The Constitution gives every state the power to allocate its electoral votes for president, as well as to change state law on how those votes are awarded.

The bill is currently endorsed by over 1,659 state legislators (in 48 states) who have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.

In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. This national result is similar to recent polls in closely divided battleground states: Colorado-- 68%, Iowa --75%, Michigan-- 73%, Missouri-- 70%, New Hampshire-- 69%, Nevada-- 72%, New Mexico-- 76%, North Carolina-- 74%, Ohio-- 70%, Pennsylvania -- 78%, Virginia -- 74%, and Wisconsin -- 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Delaware --75%, Maine -- 77%, Nebraska -- 74%, New Hampshire --69%, Nevada -- 72%, New Mexico -- 76%, Rhode Island -- 74%, and Vermont -- 75%; in Southern and border states: Arkansas --80%, Kentucky -- 80%, Mississippi --77%, Missouri -- 70%, North Carolina -- 74%, and Virginia -- 74%; and in other states polled: California -- 70%, Connecticut -- 74% , Massachusetts -- 73%, Minnesota – 75%, New York -- 79%, Washington -- 77%, and West Virginia- 81%. Support is strong in every partisan and demographic group surveyed.

The National Popular Vote bill has passed 29 state legislative chambers, in 19 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oregon, and both houses in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington. These five states possess 61 electoral votes -- 23% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

@Chachy: "But like I said, the Founders forbade this solution unto all eternity."

Not true. They just made it more difficult than other amendments. You need all of the states, rather than 2/3, to ratify an amendment which would distribute senators by population. Difficult to achieve, perhaps, but it can't be more difficult than getting the states to dissolve themselves entirely.

One could also, under the 2/3 system, simply abolish the senate (which would affect all states equally) and then establish a new chamber, with senate-like terms and house-of-representatives-like proportional representation of the states.

I like it - of course, this will never happen, U.S. politics being what it is.

My only quibble is the names - Rio Grande (S. Arizona and New Mexico) is nowhere near the Rio Grande (or much of it anyway). It should be called Sonora (or perhaps Pecos). Meanwhile, the Pecos River is nowhere near the state of Pecos, but its southern border is the Rio Grande.

But the real advantage is in the Senate. Right now, Wyoming has as many senators as California. Vermont has as many as Texas. That's just straight up retarded. It's certainly not democratic.

Well, the US is not a Democracy, so where is the problem with a non-Democratic institution that makes this an "advantage"? This seems like presuppositionalism at its worst, in this case, presupposing everything must be "equal" and "fair".

This country is a Federal Constitutional Republic.

protect regional interests from the will of the majority; i.e., to protect southern interests; i.e., to protect slavery from meddlesome northerners.

Where do you get that from? There were always more northern states.

The intention behind equal representation in the Senate is to gave an equal voice to the consituent states of the US. Had they not been granted that, the small states would never have joined, since they would have been dominated by PA, NY, and VA.

The main effect of this map is to increase Senatorial representation in what are now Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois (both from 1 to 2 states), Florida (from 1 to 3), Texas (from 1 to 3), and California (from 1 to 6) and take away representation from the Great Plains (from 12 states to 5). Also Metro NYC/Philly ends up as 6 states where it is currently 3, while northern New England goes from 3 to 1.

Political power would be completely concentrated into California, Texas, Florida, the Northeast Corridor, and the Illinois/Michigan/Ohio triad. The rest of the country would be a permanent minority (only 20 states on the Pac Northwest, Great Plains, the South, Indian, and Northern New England). Even most of those "states" would be dominated by a large city. True rural areas would be the 3 great plains "states", Northern New England, and Tombigbee.

As for the electoral college, it wouldn't solve the problem entirely.

Again, why presuppose the electoral college is a "problem"? What is wrong with losing the popular vote but still being elected? Being elected President of the United States requires obtaining both a large number of votes, and a widespread distribution of those votes across the country. I don't want a President who got 90% of the votes of California, New York, Massachusetts, and Maryland, and 35% of the votes everywhere else (do the math, that guy wins 51-49). Who would he really attempt to serve? 80% of the votes in the South + 35% everywhere else also "wins" in a pure Democracy. Sound good to you?

"Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states."

Every vote is politically relevant. If people in stakes like Idaho and Massachusetts are concerned about a lack of campaigning for their votes by the "other guy", they should first stop and consider that they will only be courted if they decide to actually give the "other guy" a chance by voting for a different party.

"The Constitution gives every state the power to allocate its electoral votes for president, as well as to change state law on how those votes are awarded."

The Constitution awards Electors to each state, not certain votes. The Electors are free to vote as they please and cannot be bound, since they are the ones actually casting the votes.

One could also, under the 2/3 system, simply abolish the senate (which would affect all states equally) and then establish a new chamber, with senate-like terms and house-of-representatives-like proportional representation of the states.

No you can't do that. The Constitution forbids depriving any state of its equal suffrage in the Senate without its consent. You can't abolish the Senate with a 2/3 vote + 3/4 ratification, because not every state would have consented.

The current system does not provide some kind of check on the "mobs." There have been 22,000 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 10 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector's own political party. The electors are dedicated party activists of the winning party who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.

If the National Popular Vote bill were to become law, it would not change the need for candidates to build a winning coalition across demographics. Any candidate who yielded, for example, the 21% of Americans who live in rural areas in favor of a "big city" approach would not likely win the national popular vote. Candidates would still have to appeal to a broad range of demographics, and perhaps even more so, because the election wouldn't be capable of coming down to just one demographic, such as voters in Ohio.

Based on historical evidence, there is far more fragmentation of the vote under the current state-by-state system of electing the President than in elections in which the winner is simply the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the jurisdiction involved.

Under the current state-by-state system of electing the President (in which the candidate who receives a plurality of the popular vote wins all of the state's electoral votes), minor-party candidates have significantly affected the outcome in six (40%) of the 15 presidential elections in the past 60 years (namely the 1948, 1968, 1980, 1992, 1996, and 2000 presidential elections). The reason that the current system has encouraged so many minor-party candidates and so much fragmentation of the vote is that a presidential candidate with no hope of winning a plurality of the votes nationwide has 51 separate opportunities to shop around for particular states where he can affect electoral votes or where he might win outright. Thus, under the current system, segregationists such as Strom Thurmond (1948) or George Wallace (1968) won electoral votes in numerous Southern states, although they had no chance of receiving the most popular votes nationwide. In addition, candidates such as John Anderson (1980), Ross Perot (1992 and 1996), and Ralph Nader (2000) did not win a plurality of the popular vote in any state, but managed to affect the outcome by switching electoral votes in numerous particular states.

Andrew:"Political power would be completely concentrated into California, Texas, Florida, the Northeast Corridor, and the Illinois/Michigan/Ohio triad."

That's where the people are. Only 20% of Americans now live in rural areas, yet they have an outsized influence on our political process. Doesn't seem particularly fair to me.

Also"Where do you get that from? There were always more northern states."

Simply not true (at least when we are talking about the division between free and slave states).Read up on the Missouri Compromise. Here's a handy little graphic that shows the proportion of free to slave states at various points in history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Slave_Free_1789-1861.gif

The method of apportioning Senators might be entrenched in your constitution, but is the requirement to have a Senate? I'd suggest an "easier" solution than change the states or write a new constitution would be an amendment to abolish the Senate altogether, or replace it with a new upper house that is apportioned differently.

What is wrong with giving extra power to the rural minority in one half of one branch of the government that requires a cure?

Isn't this just another form of checks and balances?

Just because the Supreme Court on a whim destroyed the historical example of this on the state level (State Senators apportioned by County instead of by population), why must we follow suit nationally?

The 11 most populous states contain 56% of the population of the United States and a candidate would win the Presidency if 100% of the voters in these 11 states voted for one candidate. However, if anyone is concerned about the this theoretical possibility, it should be pointed out that, under the current system, a candidate could win the Presidency by winning a mere 51% of the vote in these same 11 states -- that is, a mere 26% of the nation's votes.

Of course, the political reality is that the 11 largest states rarely act in concert on any political question. In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states include five "red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six "blue" states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). The fact is that the big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.

Moreover, the notion that any candidate could win 100% of the vote in one group of states and 0% in another group of states is far-fetched. Indeed, among the 11 most populous states, the highest levels of popular support were found in the following seven non-battleground states:* Texas (62% Republican), * New York (59% Democratic), * Georgia (58% Republican), * North Carolina (56% Republican), * Illinois (55% Democratic), * California (55% Democratic), and * New Jersey (53% Democratic).

To put these numbers in perspective, Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes). Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 votes for Bush in 2004.

What is wrong with giving extra power to the racial minorities in one half of one branch of the government?

We already do that in the House. Its called Gerrymandering. I'm all for it too, as it helps to give small groups a voice in large government bodies.

Having been a minority (a white Republican int he city of Philadelphia), I very much valued the Gerrymandering of the City Council and State House that allowed us Republicans (20% of the electorate), to elect 1 of 10 City Council seats and 4 of 27 State House Seats so that we had a voice in our own governance.

I personally believe that the stability and acceptance of the legitimacy of democratically elected governments depends upon inclusion of as many different groups of voices as possible in decision making bodies, so that as many groups as possible have a role in the making of the laws by which we all live. That's why I'm 100% for politcal, racial, ethnic, and socio-economic Gerrymandering in the House (and on a local level, in State Houses, City Councils, etc.). Districts on that level should be drawn to help ensure the inclusion of minority political parties, ethnic and racial minorities, and voices representing different class levels in government, so that as many points of view as possible are represented, presented, and heard.

The worst possible democratically elected government would be one where through "balance" "fairness" and "equality" a slight 51% majority held all of the political power by way of carving up the origins of political power to always benefit themselves. Anyone who has ever looked into redistricting knows how this can occur if it is not checked by way of mandated Gerrymandering (effectively what is required by the Voting Rights Act).

Now to balance out against that and provide an alternative point of view, a body like the Senate, where geography matters more than personal characterisitcs, has its own merits and importance. A body like the Senate requires the building of support across groups within a State to win a seat, and across States to make a governing coalition.

By giving voice to and considering two different sources of political power, the American system provides a unique method of obtaining majority consensus on legislation. Legislation must appeal to both a broad group of specially focused legislators (the House) and a broad group of widely focused legislators (the Senate). That is why the Senate should not be changed to mimic the House.

I'm all for getting all voices heard, but the problem is our structure of government. Essentially, a minority that holds slightly over 40% of one branch of government can cause massive deadlock. That's why I'm much more a proponent of a parliamentary system (I believe the UK's been called an elective dictatorship before, where the people get to vote on which party gets to be dictator every few years). In that system, there's no question about who's accountable, and if a deadlock does occur, elections are called. In human history, parliamentary democracies are far more stable and capable of staying democratic than presidential democracies.

The Filibuster rule is a Senate tradition. There is nothing mandated concerning it in the Constitution.

The Democrats howled when the Republicans suggested changing the rule for certain votes (such as the approval of judicial and administrative nominees) several years ago. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and what is good for the goose apparently is NOT good for the gander.

The Senate has many strange traditions, including the ability of a single Senator to place holds on legislation, or for Senators from a state to have undue influence over appointees within their State. If the Democrats really don't like these type of roadblocks, they hold the 51 votes to change the rules of the Senate.

The idea of dividing up places people live for a bit of political expedience is so bad that it deserves an equally stupid rebuttal: make the number of senators dependent on the size of their state.

Better yet, make the territory of every two senators equal to 4% of the nation's land area. Given that the total area is about 3,794,083 sq miles, 4% of that is about 150,000 sq miles, which means California and Montana would retain their two senators, Texas would get 4 senators, Alaska would get 12, and the area covered by Pennsylvania through Maine would get two senators. People living in the sparsest areas would get the best representation, which might prompt a redistribution of population, ending the imbalance that cities on east and west coasts create.

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